Allow me to introduce myself. My friends call me JR, but you can call me Grendel. I am in an interesting position here. I don’t really enjoy this as I should. Beauty enshrouds me like this heavy wet cloth upon my heart. Cold and dank. It’s all fake. I know that, you know that. I don’t even know why we’re here. Perhaps to partake of this false beauty, the way it teases us. But somehow I doubt even that.
I didn’t try to get involved when I went to college. In fact, I went out of my way to avoid it. But she made me stay on the social path. She forced her foot into my door as I slammed it onto her perfectly polished toe.
She wore this slap bracelet. It was purple with silver and gold swirls. That’s my first memory of her. Her other wrist is weighed down with about ten assorted bangles that I can’t recall right now, but that slap bracelet will stay with me until I die. It curled around her wrist so lovingly, following the texture of the curls embossed upon it. Everything about her was curly. When I close my eyes and think of her now, all I see are bright swirls dancing on my eyelids, or maybe that’s what everyone sees.
She dropped her books down in front of my lunch tray, the top one was something about Bob Dylan. I don’t remember now, only the curves stay in my mind. She handed me this flyer, “Rock Concert: Candiass Pansy Bitches. Friday Night, Old Jail House, 10 PM. BYOB”. I looked at her blankly. She thought I was into this? No, I think not, I am much too elite for a silly rock party. “Be there.” She said, peering at me from behind her perfectly messy bangs, streaked with yellow stripes. “Ok” I said.
The Jail House is this old building on the edge of campus. It’s about to fall down, but there have been some major parties there. I walked in to find your usual college situation. The art students crowded around talking about their newest performance art idea while smoking up, the indie rock kids getting drunk off of one beer in the kitchen, and all other rock n roll goers crowding around the amps and microphones trying to make the band think they’re cool.
I searched every wrist I could get in my site. No slap bracelet. I must find the slap bracelet. I hunted for it, ready to tear wrists off if they didn’t have that slap bracelet on it. I needed to find that bracelet. And then, the Candiass Pansy Bitches took to the stage; slap bracelet and all.
She was beautiful. Her brown hair had these perfect streaks of red in them. She wore this bright green shirt with “
shimmer” written across the front. Her jeans were perfectly
hip slung and a leather belt with silver studs held them up. Her shoes were hand painted with flames licking at the toes. My slap bracelet girl was the Candiass Pansy Bitch.
I never knew what she said exactly, but she was never as beautiful as when she was singing. In her voice I could see all that life had to offer me. She forced me to listen to her. She lured me here with her curves and her slap bracelet. She looked me in the eye when she sang and she told me about the wonders I hadn’t yet experienced. She told me that I would be hers. She would write songs about me. I could paint pictures of her. We would devour each other and what would be left would be something totally new and fresh.
If you saw her sing, you would give up anything that you believed in strongly just to earn a place by her side. I have heard the Sirens sing and I have stepped across their shores. They gave me a purple slap bracelet. They call me Beowulf, but that doesn't fit either. Her beauty was perfect enough to make me give up nihilism. But can curves truly save me now? Dark and dank and cold and wet. Noisy and hot and smokey and dizzying. I love my slap bracelet girl. I love my slap bracelet.